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SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION 



OF 



PHILADELPHIA, 



PAPERS OF 1875. 



MIND READING. 

READ BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION MAY I2th, 187; 

BY PROF. PERSIFOR FRAZER, Jr. 



The following is a list of the Papers read before the Association : 

1 87 1. Compidso7y Education. By Lorin Blodget. 
Arbitration as a Remedy for Strikes. By Eckley B. Coxe. 

The Revised Statutes of Pennsylvania. By R. C. McMurtrie. 
Local Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
Infant Mortality. By Dr. J. S. Parry. 

1872. Statute Law and Comtnon Law, and the Proposed Revision in Penn- 

sylvania. By E. Spencer Miller. 
Apprenticeship. By James S. Whitney. 
The Proposed Amend?nents to the Constitution of Pennsylvania. By 

Francis Jordan. 
Vaccination. By Dr J. S. Parry. 
The Census. By Lorin Blodget. 

1873. The Tax System of Pennsylvania. By Cyrus Elder. 

The Work of the Constitutional Convention. By A. Sydney Biddle. 
What shall Philadelphia do with its Paupers ? By Dr. Ray. 
Proportional Representation. By S. Dana Horton. 
Statistics Relating to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, etc. ,in Philadelphia. 

By John Stockton-Hough, M. D. 
On the Value of Original Scientific Research. By Dr. Ruschenberger. 
On the Relative Influence of City and Country Life, on Morality, Health, 

Fecitndity, Longevity and Mortality . By John Stockton-Hough, M. D. 

1874. The Public School System of Philadelphia. By James S. Whitney. 
The Utility of Government Geological Surveys. By Prof. J. P. Lesley. 
The Law of Partnership. By J. G. Rosengarten. 

Methods of Valuation of Real Estate for Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
The Merits of Cremation. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 
Outlines of Penology. By Joseph R. Chandler. 

1875. Brain Disease, and Modem Living. Dr. Ray. 

Hygiene of the Eye, Considered with Reference to the Children in our 

Schools. By Dr. F. D. Castle. 
The Relative Morals of City and Country. By Wm. S. Peirce. 
Silk Culture and Home Industry. Dr. Saml. Chamberlaine. 
Mind Reading, etc. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 



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* 



MIND' READING. 



Often, on the surface of a stream of water which is rapidly flowing 
towards a narrow defile, a floating log will be carried so as to present 
its side to the current, and after bounding and rebounding on the 
obstructions, it will glide back in an eddy, to re-enter the channel 
again at some point higher up and renew its attempt at passage. 
Perhaps its branches and twigs spread out so much that its tran- 
sit is impossible except in one definite position, in which case 
it may thus be thrown again and again against the gorge and 
returned ; or it may be wedged for a time across the rivulet and 
remain a long time fixed stationary, until some fortuitous change 
in the conditions (such as the increase of the force of the water, 
the impact of some other floating body, etc.), finally accords it 
a passage. 

The case is very similar with many perplexing problems which 
have never ceased to occupy the attention of mankind — questions 
which the perennial flow of experiences, constituting the widen- 
ing river of human knowledge, have brought nearer and nearer to 
their elucidation, but which when almost within reach have been 
suddenly checked, or which some inconsistent newly acquired facts 
have driven back further from our ken than ever. Again and again 
have the ever-changing events of the life of civilization brought 
such questions back to the first barrier in ever-varied positions 
and relations. Some have yielded to the unknown forces which 
guide the general currentand have been born into our knowledge. 
We say we know them. But how vastly many more remain as un- 
divined to-day as they were in the times of the Rameses, build- 
ing continually, — to carry out the simile just employed, — an indefi- 
nitely enormous raft like that famous one of the Red river, which 
may extend as far back into the unknown country which is the 



4 Mind Reading. 

source of our developmental force as the placid sheet on which 
we float stretches on to the unknown ocean of our destiny. 1 Such 
questions cannot be abandoned and disregarded by the common 
consent of mankind. They are integral parts of the whole net- 
work .of existence. Organic nature struggles to evolve them by 
the force of man's understanding, as the organs of the body are 
evolved by the processes of life. If this force be too feeble the 
embryo still remains — still seeks, by the irritation which its effort 
at development creates, a stimulus adequate to its disinthralment. 

In the history of the race, then, repeated reappearances of 
mysteries are so familiar as hardly to need citation. They are 
recorded under different names and in different phases, with all 
kinds of explanations and hypotheses, upheld with all degrees of 
of belief on the part of their chroniclers — as a general rule their 
dogmatism and conviction of the truth of their own theories be- 
ing weaker in proportion to the recency of the age. 

The fact of these inevitable resurrections has an important 
bearing on human psychology, for it shows that the contemplation 
of these objects is a condition of mental existence. 

Among the most persistent of these revisitants of the pale 
glimpses of the moon is the idea of the active participation in the 
affairs of men of disembodied spirits, i. e. of men and women, 
minus all that we are positive that men and women possess. It 
may be said that no people ever existed, in a state of civilization 
enabling them to form any abstract ideas, to whom this notion of 
spirits was not familiar in some form or other. The earliest records 
of our race present this belief, not in its incipiency, but in the full 
noon-tide of its existence. Wherever we turn we find this faith. 
It is almost common to our race, and this of itself inclines some 
conservative people to yield to it unquestioning acceptance. 

It has been often objected to the idea of the formation of the 
globe from a molten sphere, that the earliest known rocks, and 
therefore those which are chronologically the nearest to the 

1 "Every day reveals to us new channels in the courses of nature ; but as we 
trace them back to their source we find them to be the branches of one great 
current, which forces everything before it onward and straight forward into the 
universal ocean — the end of all things and the beginning of the new ; that great 
reservoir from which the elements of all things are derived and to which they 
all return," etc., etc. Clark : " Mind in Nature.'''' 



Mind Reading. 5 

original rock, are nevertheless of clearly sedimentary origin, 2 and 
it may be similarly objected to any hypothesis which would 
derive a belief so ancient and wide-spread from a natural attempt 
of the human mind to classify all phenomena — even the uncom- 
prehended — that the very earliest information we have of our 
species includes as one of its most fundamental characters, the 
recognition of an unseen world peopled by intelligent beings ; 
and moreover that in no instance, among the numerous savage 
tribes with which ethnologists have made us acquainted, do we 
. find any exception to the rule. On the contrary, it may be said 
that so far from a state of doubt or disbelief in such a world being 
the normal condition of man, such doubt never exists among the 
people least removed by culture from our original state, and 
seems to require a considerable civilization in order to secure 
even a foot-hold. 

And yet the cultivated mind cannot help reflecting on the 
phenomena upon which these existences are predicated, and seek- 
ing to bring them under some still more general head with other 
phenomena satisfactorily understood, /. <?., to push classification 
of phenomena to its limits. 

It is sufficiently admitted that the primitive worship of the 
unknown was a worship of an indefinite number of bad or good 
spirits, each of which had special control over one kind of force. 
The power of generalization whereby the superstitious barbarian 
connected together such different evils as famine, pestilence and 
war, and ascribed them to the agency of the same demon, is of far 
later growth than their reference to many unknown agencies. In 
fact, the culmination of this doctrine in the replacement of the 
thousands of gods of the Rig Veda by a select few, shows a con- 
siderable advance in intellectual culture, and an application of the 
principles of true inductive philosophy. 

The different degrees of power which the superhuman beings 
were supposed to possess were as various as the attributes by which 
they were known — from the almost infinite power of Brahma, 
and the very great power of Zeus, (limited however by his own 
human imperfections,) to the limited capacity for interference in 

2 " The alternations of argillaceous, chloritic, and other schists with quartzites, 
limestones, gneiss, and the other azoic rocks, prove that all were once sediment- 
ary beds." Manual of Geology, J. D. Dana. 



Mind Reading. 



a 



human affairs of the imps and elfs and the Mephistophelean Devil. 
In fact, tired of bowing his head in awe before the mute and 
motionless creations of his fancy, and yet too much the slave of 
fear to cast off their fetters altogether, a distinctly humorous vein 
was gradually introduced into human mythology whereby men 
were represented oftentimes as outwitting, subduing, imprisoning, 
and even sometimes chastising these superior intellects and forces. 
Such for example are the stories of casting out devils, wrestling 
with angels, banning witches and evil spirits by the sign of the 
cross and by horse-shoes, imprisoning the Devil in a charmed circle 
till he agreed to exercise his power for the advantage of the human 
gaoler ; cheating the Angel of Death ; bottling up the genii ; com- 
manding the services of fairies by the possession of amulets, talis- 
mans, etc., etc. 

All these fables are are but the buds and leaves and twigs of a 
tree indigenous to man's mind. Its original germ may be said to 
be an unfortunate tendency to self-deception, the last obstacle 
to progress which the master-mind in science succeeds in over- 
coming. The savage worships the wind because he cannot under- 
stand the cause of the force it exhibits. But though he cannot un- 
derstand the cause, he gives it a name, and this name becomes to 
him afterwards a living entity. The case is very parallel with the 
more subtle disputations of those metaphysicians who handle 
" consciousness," and "will" as if each were a separate existence, 
independent of the body or of the other manifestations of organic 
life. 3 

3 " There is no force in the reason alleged by Descartes to prove the indepen- 
dence of our free actions by a pretended lively internal sentiment. It is as if 
the needle should take pleasure in turning to the north: for it would suppose 
that it turned independently of any other cause, not perceiving the insensible 
motions of magnetic matter." — Leibnitz. 

" En tout ce que je puis dire a ceux qui croirent qu'ils peuvent parler, se 
taire, en un mot, agir en vertu d'une libre decision de Tame, c'est qu'ils re- 
vent les yeux ouverts." — Spinoza. 

x -s;- * « Abstractions were made from the concrete by the active 
mind; and the abstractions being thus converted into objective realities, were 
looked upon and applied as actual entities in nature." 

" Anaximander, looking into his own mind and finding an imbecility there, 
gave to it the name of the Infinite, and transferring it outwards was thenceforth 
quite content to pronounce it the true origin of all things; whilst Pythagoras, 



Mind Reading. 7 

This habit of giving names to things we do not comprehend, 
joined with our prudent habit of propitiating the entire unknown 
under one general designation, in view of possible contingencies, 
may be safely considered the integral factors of all our supersti- 
tions — and of much more beside that is not generally included 
under that term. 

But on the other hand there is a numerous class of thinkers who 
will not consider problems the elements to the solution of which 
are not felt to be at hand. It is a charge, unjustly made to be 
sure, yet like all sweeping charges easy of expression, one which 
has come to be one of the rallying cries of the adherents of those 
isms which are excluded by scientific men from the catalogue of 
their fields of inquiry, that the latter are as much afraid of seeing 
phenomena as are the most fanatical upholders of mystery and 
faith. And it is true that certain classes of phenomena have been 
shunned by the orthodox from their general resemblance to cher- 
ished mysteries, and the fear that they may be explained by natu- 
ral laws now known ; and also by a scattering few in the army of 
science for fear that they cannot be thus resolved. 4 

Without entering upon the intensely interesting inquiries as to 
the origin and growth of ancient creeds and superstitions, either 
generally or in detail, it may be permitted to note at random a 
few circumstances usually surrounding narratives of unusual events. 

going still further into the unmeaning, proclaimed numbei-s, which are mere 
arbitrary symbols, to be actual existences and the origin of things." — Mauds- 
ley : "Physiology and Pathology of the Mind." 

" In the common metaphysical conception of sensation as a certain constant 
faculty, what happens is this : the abstraction from the particular is converted 
into an objective entity which thenceforth tyrannizes over the understanding." 
— Ibid. p. 91. 

" Those who are metaphysically minded have done with idea, as they have 
done with sensation : they have converted a general term, summing up a great 
number of various phenomena, into an actual entity, and thenceforth allowed it 
to tyrannize over the thoughts." — Ibid. p. no. 

4 There is some difficulty in understanding why those who are willing to 
accept all the Scriptural miracles without doubt or hesitancy, should join in pro- 
nouncing similar miracles, attested by apparently trustworthy sources, impossi- 
ble. There is a vagueness about the boundary which separates the time when 
miracles were from that when they were not possible, which such persons 
would do well to dispel. 



8 Mind Reading. 

Probably each of us remembers being carried along spell-bound 
by the skillful narrator of some mysterious tale. The eyes are 
strained on the speaker, the features motionless, the breath held 
back that the movement may not confuse the ideas by sending 
two impressions to the brain. Our whole existence seems divided 
between the conscious act of learning and the unconscious print- 
ing off of the matter in the brain, as the telegraphic tremors of the 
auditory nerves keep the copy supplied. If the conclusion leaves 
the narration still a mystery, how solemnly we look. The mind 
wanders over and over the thread of the story, seeking egress from 
the darkness, and finding none, we move off slowly and reflect- 
ively, leaving the reverberations of the recital as a whole (and 
abstracted from its details) still resounding, though in feeble and 
feebler cadences, through the soul. 5 Every such deep impression 
derived from a tale well told intensifies the emotional and stimu- 
lates the reflective capacities within us. 

Nothing is so captivating as mystery, provided we find our- 
selves ambuscaded by it, as it were, without having known it. 6 To 
say that we cannot go far either in the direction of cause or effect 
without coming to the inscrutable, produces no more effect than 
to say that every one can look into infinite space from his door- 
step ; but to find a mystery among the affairs of everyday life, is 
like discovering a fathomless pit in one's cellar. 

In turning over the many compendiums of strange events which 
have been published, it is striking to observe that certain kinds 
of things usually happen together. The dead arise from their 
graves, generally about midnight, almost always habited in 
white. They glide without noise while in sight, but frequently 
are heard to tread heavily, clank chains, etc., when not within 
the field of view. They prefer dimly lighted chambers and 

5 Moreover the sensation itself may persist for awhile after the cruse of it 
has disappeared, as when an image of the sun remains after we have ceased to 
look at it, or the roar of the cannon abides in the ears after the firing has 
ceased. Such persistence of action in the ganglionic cell will serve to convey 
a notion of the condition of things when there is hallucination otherwise caused." 
Mauds ley : "Physiology and Pathology of the Mind" p. ioo. 

6 The passion of surprise or wonder from miracles being an agreeable emotion, 
gives a sensible tendency toward the belief of those events from which it is de- 
rived. Hume 's Essays : "Miracles.'''' 



Mind Reading. 9 

dark copses, and almost always vanish before a bright light or the 
return of day. 

To be sure there are all sorts of ghosts, but this represents the 
normal, old-fashioned kind of apparition. 

Now, that the conditions which are favorable to the production 
of these spectres are just those which are unfavorable to the proper 
use of the sense of sight, by means of which we derive our princi- 
pal ideas of substance, is one which it would be difficult to explain, 
except on the theory that the climax of the mystery was to be sup- 
plied by the imagination. So strictly in conformity with the laws 
of our bodily organs are these conditions, that absolute darkness is 
almost as unusual a concomitant of spectral visions as bright illumi- 
nation ; and the reason of this would seem to be that in the former 
case the whole burden of conceiving and maintaining the decep- 
tion falls upon the imagination, which in most persons and in most 
states it is incapable of accomplishing ; whereas, the attention being 
really chained by an actual though ill-defined object, the imagi- 
nation fills out the details without difficulty. With the prevalence 
of traditions relating to this kind of phenomena — traditions 
which were perhaps first confined to the simplest modes of such 
manifestations, but afterwards became more and more elaborate 
— there is little difficulty in accounting for the uniformity of sur- 
roundings of these ghosts. What is called the association of ideas, 
and the physiological psychologist calls the "intuitive motor resi- 
dua," 7 through acquired habit, must of necessity be responsible 
for this lack of variety. 

An unusual noise summons up a remembrance of the story of an 
unusual sound and its connected supernatural cause, though we 
may not be conscious of them. This mental action is similar 
to the effect of a pleasant taste to excite the appetite, and com 
versely the appetite to call up visions of a delicious repast. 

The fact that the ghostly uniform is usually white suggests as 
reasons, first, that this is likely to be the color which most attracts 
the eye in feeble light ; and, secondly, custom teaches us to ex- 
pect more dead men than any other class of visitants, because this 
can prove no alibis, and the robes of the dead are generally white. 
Midnight is the hour of appearance, because this period is farthest 

7 Maudsley. 



10 Mind Reading. 

from the da}', a period when the bright illumination of objects 
leaves nothing to the fancy. It is not improbable that the origin 
of the idea that these objects glide without noise, may be partly 
due to the fact that to be far enough off to be indistinct they must 
be too far to be clearly heard ; or else it may be connected with 
the gradual passage across the eye of an imaginary picture, as is 
the case in dreams. 

Countless numbers of inexplicable events are verified on unim- 
peachable evidence. These phenomena concern various parts of 
Nature, from those which affect the upper regions of the atmos- 
phere or interstellar space itself, sensible to a number of per- 
sons at the same time, and which are only connected with 
our consciousness through the medium of our observation, to 
those which interweave themselves inextricably with our subjec- 
tive existence, and whose very appearance bears some relation 
to the state of our physical being. 

The former kind we have no difficulty in agreeing about, though 
we may not be able to explain them ; and if those whose personal 
experiences have not permitted them to verify the latter, doubt 
their existence, or at least refuse to refer the cause to some stupend- 
ous power overreaching the universe, their action will be justified 
by the common practice of mankind. 

Thus various and contradictory opinions are held respecting 
the true cause of the Solar Corona, the Zodiacal Light, and even 
the Aurora Borealis ; yet that the cause or causes of these phenom- 
ena are intimately connected with the laws of Nature already 
known to us, no one doubts. And even if the causes were other 
laws as yet unknown to us, no one would hesitate to believe the 
universality of the action. But the case is different when, start- 
ing with phenomena to the successful production of which certain 
individuals are necessary, we are asked to extend our belief in their 
cause to a different kind of existence from any that we know, and 
finally to accept a cosmogony as intricate, as arbitrary and as unsat- 
isfactory as any from which science is engaged in delivering us. 8 

8 See the " Defense of Modern Spiritualism," by Alfred R. Wallace, F. R. S., 
with a preface by Epes Sargent, Boston, 1874 (p. 52), where as one argument 
in favor of the doctrines of the Spiritualists, it is urged that they render the tra- 
ditions of primitive mankind literally possible. Should this be a ground in 
their favor? 



Mind Reading: i i 



The epidemic of mesmerism and "electro-biology" had already 
spread over the country before spiritualism, and not only were 
the conditions under which the unexplained effects were produced 
allied to those of the later mystery, but the effects themselves 
nearly resembled each other. In both cases the means of com- 
munication were through a person who was peculiarly fitted for 
the exhibition of such phenomena (whether called subject or 
medium), and the success of the experiments depended upon the 
bodily condition of the person, the atmospheric changes, etc.; 
but the revelations were, if anything, a reading of the mind of 
one person by another. 

A very striking instance of the manner in which this power of 
clairvoyance is limited, was related to me by a gentleman of un- 
doubted candor and trained power of judgment. A young girl 
who was subject to epileptic fits 9 possessed the power, when in a 
state of trance, of describing distant events and places. Upon 
one occasion a lady, unknown to her previously, received an ac- 
curate and detailed description of the house in which she lived, 
the surroundings, interior, etc. In the course of the narrative 
the girl described a gentleman in the house whom the lady had 
no difficulty in recognizing as her husband. His movements 
were detailed, his departure from the house, the route that 
he took along the streets, etc. Finally he was declared to have 
entered a house, which from its position was recognized as that 
of the gentleman's mother. He was said to enter a room and to 
have met persons there whose description tallied exactly with the 
appearance of the occupants of the house. In the greatest sur- 
prise the lady went home, and on meeting her husband informed 
him that she had been enabled to follow him in his movements 
during that evening by the help of a clairvoyant. But on repeat- 
ing the description, he assured her that he had been in quite 
another part of the city. 

Nevertheless the impression had been sharply fixed in the lady's 
mind that her husband had gone just where he was described to 
have gone. Here seemed to be one of those instances which are 
too numerous and well authenticated to discredit, where the ideas 

9 Maudsley regards epilepsy as "in great part a true sensorial insanity." 
Phys. & Path., p. 101. 



1 2 Mind Reading. 

in one person's mind are communicated to that of another person, 
by means as yet wholly unknown. 

From another gentleman eminent in science, I am told that on 
one occasion, after having seen some public experiments of mesmer- 
ism, it occurred to him to imitate the motions of the mesmerizer. 
The experiment was attempted in a country house where some 
young people, acquaintances of his, were guests. None of the party 
had ever had the slightest experience in mesmerism but himself. 
Accordingly he selected a youth of pale and nervous appearance, 
and by making the passes he had seen made, and keeping his mind 
and his eye steadily fixed upon his subject, he succeeded in six or 
seven minutes in throwing him into a mesmeric sleep. A number 
of experiments were then tried, strikingly illustrative of the doc- 
trine of intuitive motor residua so elaborately worked out by 
Maudsley. When the fists were doubled the subject made the 
motions with his arms of fighting, etc. But more extraordinary 
still, when a coin or other object was held in the hand behind his 
head, he was able to describe it minutely. 

It is a grievous mistake to suppose that any considerable number 
of scientific men will not admit the truth of that which can 
be demonstrated. In this sense, Hume's remark that " a miracle," 
(/. e., that which seemed to him to contravene the known laws of 
nature) "supported by any human testimony, is more properly a 
subject of derision than of argument," and Faraday^s remark that 
"we must approach the investigation of phenomena with an edu- 
cated judgment of what is and what is not possible," are less true 
to the rules of conduct governing the earnest seeker after truth, 
than that of Arago, that " He who, out of pure mathematics, makes 
use of the word impossible, is imprudent. " 1(> 

Leaving these questions of disputed truth with the observation 
that no amount of testimony proving that there are no grounds why 
such and such a thing should not be so, can carry a conviction 
to one that it is so, 11 we can address overselves to an humble, 

10 Clifford would probably extend the application to mathematics itself. 

11 " I have finally settled down to the opinion that, as to the phenomena of so 
extraordinary a character, one may by dint of discussion reach the conviction 
that there are sufficient reasons for believing them, but that one really does be- 
lieve them only after having seen them." Bertrand : ** Traite de Somnambii- 



Mind Reading. 1 3 

but not, therefore, uninteresting part of this general realm of mys 
tery, i. e., the communication between minds without conscious^ 
employment of the physical organs. 

Fortunately for our purpose, a case is at hand which has not 
ceased to be a topic of conversation among the public. It is that 
of the so-called " Mind Reading" of Mr. Brown. The faculty 
which this gentleman claims to possess is the simplest manifesta- 
tion of what may be called "reading the mind" — so simple as 
naturally to lead to the suspicion among many persons that it is 
merely an acute perception of those involuntary nervous motions 
which we cannot avoid making when our attention is concentrated 
on a single object. 

Mr. Brown takes the hand of a person, who then fixes his mind 
on & given place, and by moving to and fro, whereby he naturally 
brings the person alternately near to and far away from the ob- 
ject, he narrows the circle of his wanderings down to a point, 
which he thereupon declares to be that in which the object selected 
is placed, or which represents the object itself. This is of course 
a mere general statement which is intended to coverall cases, and 
not meant to imply that the action is not sometimes direct and rapid. 

All that is effected by this faculty, then, is the direction of 
movement towards a given place ; and were this done only when 
Mr. Brown retained the hand of the person operated upon in his 
own, the disposition to ascribe the general rough approximation 
to the place of a selected object to an unconscious guiding motion 
experienced in the hand of such person would be almost irresisti- 
ble. That unconscious motions of this kind do prompt others as 
to the direction of our thoughts is undoubtedly true. A simple 
experiment to prove this may be easily tried. Let two persons 
join hands, and let one mentally decide upon the direction of a 
series of movements up and down, right and left, in any order. 
In order that the experiment be successful, the amount of force 
exerted should be the minimum necessary. If the person whose 
hand is moved pay strict attention to his intuitive impressions, it 
will be found that one who is unaccustomed to the amount of 
force which is exerted by the other, and unfamiliar with the ex- 
periment, will succeed in fairly anticipating the direction designed 
by him, and opposing to its execution a resistance a little over 
thirty-three per cent, of the number of trials. 



14 Mind Reading. 

Of course the tests upon which this average is founded are neces- 
sarily too few to furnish a reliable average ; but, so far as the lim- 
ited time permitted, this percentage has been tolerably constant. 
It will be at once seen that this average, thirty-three per cent., is 
but little above what we might reasonably expect from a machine 
whose movements were unknown to the experimenter. In other 
words, we should expect success in twenty-five per cent, of these 
experiments, as there are but four directions permitted. 

It might be also said that in so rough an experiment it was 
hardly possible for the persons engaged to decide whether the im- 
pression were conveyed by an unconscious muscular action before 
the movement, or an arrest of the movement itself at a very small 
interval after its commencement. To decide this would require 
the appreciation of a small fraction of a second on the part of the 
experimenters, and that without instruments or other means than 
their own consciousness of measuring it. This difficulty was felt 
to be so serious that this method of testing was abandoned, and 
the following modification was introduced : 

The hands having been clasped as before, the subject was request- 
ed to think very strongly of making a movement in one of the 
above four directions, but at the same time to guard as much as 
possible against communicating this motion to the hand or forearm. 
At a given signal he was to choose a direction, but not to execute 
any movement. This modification of the experiment was tried by 
persons who were not accustomed to perform constantaneous move- 
ments, but the result was that the intended direction was antici- 
pated seven times out of eight. The active and passive agents 
having changed places, of the following four movements two were 
anticipated correctly. Of the whole number, nine out of twelve 
were successful anticipations. 

According to this view it would be perfectly natural that some 
persons should be better subjects than others, or in other words, 
that persons who exhibited the stronger involuntary movements 
would lead the operator most rapidly and directly to the objects, 
and that independently of whether the voluntary motions of the 
subject — which, to a great extent, experience must teach the 
former to distinguish from the involuntary — were designed to de- 
ceive or not. 

It would also be consistent with this theory, that in the average 



Mind Reading. 1 5 

cases where the muscles of the subject were too passive to direct 
the operator, so long as the person was not subjected to any great 
change of place with reference to the selected object, that a rapid 
removal from the room and a subsequent rapid re-entry into it, 
would be likely to suddenly excite such a vivid idea of the 
locality in his mind that the involuntary movements would be 
caused. 

So far as this goes, Mr. Brown acts in many of his experiments 
as if this were in reality the object of his movements. For ex- 
ample, at the first private exhibition of his powers given in Phila- 
delphia, at the Continental Hotel, the first experiment was con- 
ducted in this way. A gentleman was selected to secrete an object. 
This gentleman gave the object to me, and I put it in my pocket. 
Mr. Brown, after taking the gentleman's hand, hurried down the 
aisle between rows of benches on which were seated sixty or more 
persons, went into the hall and walked rapidly to the end of the 
corridor. Afterwards, turning suddenly on his tracks, he re-entered 
the room at a rapid pace, whereby the picture of the general loca- 
tion of the object was suddenly presented to the mind of the gen- 
tleman who had secreted it. The experiment was successful- 
Whether or not this were really the explanation of the success of 
this and similar experiments, is not certain ; but for this very 
reason these experiments are indecisive, and they form the greater 
part of the whole number. The same is the case with regard to 
selecting letters of the alphabet hung up on cards or written on 
the blackboard, selecting a particular photograph or page of a 
book, etc., etc. 

If Mr. Brown selects the object directly, it may be because the 
involuntary movements of his subject are unusually distinct ; if 
he wanders about very much before finding the object, it may be 
that his final success has been due to causing intermittent impres- 
sions of the object in the mind of the other; if he fail, the reason is 
obvious. In an experiment tried for the purpose of testing how far 
Mr. Brown could be misdirected by feigned slight involuntary 
motions of the hand, I found that it could be easily done, but the 
difficulty was to be" sure that the mind was firmly fixed on one 
object, at the same time that the motions of the hand were lead- 
ing the experimenter in an opposite direction. Where the atten- 
tion was more directed to the true place than to the causing of a 



1 6 Mind Reading. 

deception, he was not deceived ; and in the opposite case it is ques- 
tionable whether the conditions were those demanded. 

Another instance in which I was the subject illustrates this. A 
particular picture in a large atlas of birds having been selected, the 
leaves were turned over, and, while keeping the figure of the bird 
in my mind, I exerted an effort to avoid giving rise to any " thrills" 
on beholding it. The plate was passed, but when two pages more 
had been turned, Mr. Brown rapidly turned back the leaves and 
selected it. Here I could not repress the thought that the indis- 
position to submit to a tedious search over fifty or sixty pages with 
nothing but failure as an object may have so acted upon my nerves 
as to have caused motions of the hand which Mr. Brown interpre- 
ted properly. 12 

All these things and a large number of similar experiments, suf- 
ficiently vouched for by well-known persons of trained scientific 
culture in the West, Boston, New Haven and elsewhere, are in con- 
clusive as to the real source whence Mr. Brown derives his infor- 
mation; for however probable or improbable the theory of un- 
conscious guidance may be, it is not impossible ; and if it is least 
in antagonism with our experience we are bound to accept it, at 
all events provisionally. But there are other facts to be explained. 
The first, is the experiment of acting through a passive agent who 
is ignorant of the selected object. The operator clasps the hand 
of a person who is to use his mental faculties as little as possible 
— to remain perfectly passive : but a second person who has fixed 
his mind on a given place clasps this intermediate person by the 
wrist. The object is usually selected quite as readily in this case 
as in the others. The only manner in which the previous hypoth- 
esis can be supposed to apply, is that in this case the passive 
hand receives the involuntary tremors to which the active subject 
gives rise, and in this way leads the seeker to the right place. In 
order to vary the conditions of this, the two persons were requested 
to think of quite different things, the passivity of either being thus 
abolished. Mr. Brown selected with very great promptness the 
object thought of by the person whose hand he held. On changing 

12 The meeting at which the experiments here mentioned were undertaken was 
arranged by Prof. Cope and myself, at the Academy of Natural Sciences, for 
the purpose of learning something of the nature of this power. Six other 
persons were present. 



Mind Reading. 1 7 

the conditions so as to place a very "bad subject" in connection 
with him, and a very " good subject" on the outside, the object 
thought of by the latter was found. The experiment of taking 
the hands of two persons who were thinking of the same place was 
tried, in order to ascertain if a confusion of guiding tremors would 
ensue ; but the object was found without delay. 

It is one grade more difficult to believe that these indications were 
caused by unconscious tremors of a person not touching the opera- 
tor, transmitted to the entire wrist and hand of the passive subject, 
than that this was the case when there was direct contact between 
operator and subject. And if it be admitted that the very magni- 
tude of the mass moved by the forearm and wrist of the interme- 
diate person, would render the motions slower and more easy to 
interpret into a directive impulse one way or the other, it still 
is astonishing that a small object, in one case removed at arm's 
length above the heads of the persons engaged in the experi- 
ment, should be thus selected, and with apparent facility. 

But a fatal objection to this explanation would be the success 
of experiments similar to those mentioned, when the means 
of communication was a slack wire held in the hands of operator 
and subject. Two tests of this kind were attempted at the inter- 
view referred to, neither of which was entirely successful, though 
one was certainly remarkable. A number of persons held one end 
of a wire, their attention fixedly directed to a certain object, 
and Mr. Brown, being blindfolded, held the other end. In the 
first experiment the wire was over a hundred feet long and about 
one millimetre in diameter. It was insulated with cotton and 
wound around an iron pillar. The experiment failed. In the 
second instance about sixty feet of the same wire was allowed to 
trail loosely on the floor, the same conditions in other respects 
being observed. 

In both cases care was taken that the positions of the per- 
sons composing the group at the thinking end should not lead 
to any guess on the part of Mr. Brown as to the general direction 
of the object, although (as in all the experiments) he was blind- 
folded. The object was a ball of twine placed upon one of the 
tables in the large and well-filled hall of the Academy. Mr. Brown 
came back to the spot where this was lying five or six times, and 
actually touched it several times, but was unable to distinguish that 



1 8 Mind Reading. 

this was the article. When he finally abandoned the experiment 
his hands were almost, if not actually in contact with it. Never- 
theless the experiment was not a success, however near it might have 
been to it. The task of dealing with facts is a sufficient employ- 
ment, without introducing any which might have been but were 
not. At the Michigan University and at Yale College the test was 
entirely successful. The following are the published accounts of 
the feats : 

Experiment 6. — One end of a copper wire 2o)/ 2 feet long was held by Prof. 
Lyman, the other by Mr. Brown, the wire being slack. Mr. Brown (blind- 
folded as in all cases), after turning for a moment to a person seated near by, 
went straight to a spot beneath the object on which Mr. Lyman had fixed his 
thought, which was the clock, in a high and (to Mr. Brown) inaccessible 
position. What he did find was an article on a shelf within reach, and a few 
feet directly beneath the clock. 

Expedient 7. — Mr. Brown left the room. An inkstand was placed in a 
certain position on the lecture table. Prof. Fisher, Prof. Wright and Tutor 
Phelps took hold of one end of the wire before mentioned, and Mr. Brown 
blindfolded, of the other end. Very soon, and without mistake, he found the 
inkstand, having passed round the end of the table, which was then between 
him and the three gentlemen, the wire being slack and partly on the floor. — 
Prof. Lyman, Yale College. * 

■* # * * -* 

Among the rest, he was requested to take hold of the end of an insulated 
copper wire, two hundred and ten feet long, running from the basement to the 
lecture-room of the school building, while the other end was held by Prof. 
Brewer, in the basement. The professor thought of a hammer lying on a black 
board in the lecture room ; and Mr. Brown, holding his end of the wire in that 
room all the while, found the article after a search of nine minutes. 

A similar test was made with Prof. Lyman holding a slack wire, thirty feet 
long. And at a public meeting, this gentleman said " he would stake his rep- 
utation upon the genuineness of the phenomena," which he considered " of 
great scientific value." — Col. Olcott, in Daily Graphic. 

From a private letter from a gentleman connected with Yale 
College a few days ago, and in answer to an inquiry as to the ac- 
curacy of this published account of Mr. Brown's experiments 
there, I extract the following : " I have just had a talk with Prof. 
Lyman, of the Sheffield Scientific School, and am authorized to say 
that the account of Brown's performance in the papers sent by you 
is correct in every respect, it having been written by Prof. Lyman 
himself. The only criticism he has to offer was in the case of the 
wire experiment : The wire was two hundred feet long, but it was 



Mind Reading. 1 9 

so arranged as to go into the> basement and then back into the 
room where the experiment was being performed, so that Mr. Brown 
and his subject were both in the same room. Prof. Lyman remarked 
that in eight wire experiments six were entirely successful, the other 
two were partial failures, but in each case the failure was as re- 
markable as the success. The Professor is a firm believer in Brown. 
* *. * * £[ e re g arc j s the theory of "unconscious muscular 
action' as entirely opposed to the facts observed." 

This obviously occurring theory of the manner in which Mr. 
Brown performs those experiments during which his hand is in 
contact with the hand of the person operated upon is fortified by 
an account of a series of experiments performed by Mr. Whitehouse, 
and which was published in one of the dailies here. The whole 
article (which is humorously headed the "Muscle Reader"), is in- 
teresting as recounting experiments which remove all doubt as to 
the possibility of the acquisition by some persons, through experi- 
ence and attention, of such sensibility to faint movements, and such 
tact in distinguishing voluntary from involuntary tremors or pres- 
sures, as to enable them to perform the greater number of Mr. 
Brown's feats. It matters not here whether Mr. Brown performs 
them in the same way or not. If not, nature expends in his case 
a quantity of a higher kind of force which might be readily ap- 
plied to superior ideation, while its results could be as easily 
effected by means of faculties common to all mankind. Water 
seeks the most direct course down hill, and one such natural and 
direct channel of explanation having been proved, the common 
sense of mankind refuses to have anything to do with a circuitous 
and (as yet) unnatural one. 

To this extent we are indebted to the gentlemen who were 
witnesses of these extraordinary proofs of Mr. Whitehouse's skill. 
But the humorous chronicler allows his admiration to carry him 
per saltum over facts which merit, from the sources which attest 
them, the most respectful attention, and which are inconsistent 
with the theory of " muscle reading." Such are the wire experi- 
ments before alluded to. It is as contrary to all approved methods 
of induction, to reject well authenticated facts, as to jump pre- 
maturely to general conclusions. It may well be that the greater 
number of phenomena exhibited by Mr. Brown, may be gathered 
together under the head of " muscle reading," but this does not 



20 Mind Reading. 

explain those which remain. Nor is the public enlightened by 
being told in reference to this that "Mr. Whitehouse had not 
learned that trick yet" (J. e. the wire test). This premature 
assumption that all has been said on the subject, while it may 
answer the purpose of a daily paragraphist, shows a want of that 
scientific calmness with which problems of this nature should be 
regarded. 

Considering the high standing and long experience of those 
gentlemen who have pronounced in favor of Mr. Brown's possess- 
ing the power of reading the mind through a long wire, it would 
seem that this satirical writer, in the concluding sentence of the 
report alluded to, viz : that " all the fools are not dead yet," only 
lent to a universal truism what force there is in a personal 
illustration. 

In his introduction of Mr. Brown at the Continental Hotel, 
Prof. Barker stated in substance— (I quote from memory) — 
that scientific men were not averse to being made acquainted 
with facts, no matter of what nature ; that Mr. Brown was un- 
doubtedly honest, and that many of the experiments were not 
certainty solved by the application of any laws with which we 
were at present familiar. 

It is not meant to cast the slightest imputation on Mr. Brown, 
when it is said that the second of these propositions ought to have 
no weight in an investigation. No experiments can be consid- 
ered scientifically conclusive when their force is derived from a 
supposed action of the will of the subject. Asseverations of good 
faith, even though supported by circumstantial evidence, can be 
of no value in a scientific inquiry into facts. 

An experiment was tried to determine whether the clue, what- 
ever it may be, was given over the whole distance separating the 
seeker and the object sought, or whether it consisted in a great 
number of guiding impressions given at many points of the route 
chosen, and informing him of the next immediate /tf/Y of the route 
previously determined on, or which would have been naturally 
selected. A ventilator in the ceiling was selected, to which there 
was no ordinary means of access, and the mind was kept firmly 
fixed upon it. The movements were rapid and erratic. The sub- 
ject was taken out of the room and brought back again, when Mr. 
Brown, as if suspecting that the place selected must be on the sub- 



Mind Reading. 2 1 



"S 



ject's person, endeavored to find it there. There was not the least 
indication that any means of discovering the direction would be 
found, and he failed. This again seems to corroborate the uncon- 
scious movement theory, for no case can be thought of which so 
entirely precludes unwitting guidance, as where it is impossible to 
convey a hint of the route to pursue, owing to the fact that there 
is no such route. 

All the experiments heretofore considered have required from 
the successful performer, but the one faculty of locating. It was 
not entirely clear whether Mr. Brown possessed any other capacity 
or not. From his replies, contrary impressions on this subject 
were gathered. In order to test this he was blindfolded and brought 
into the room, after which certain figures unseen by him were 
drawn in chalk on the blackboard. In the first experiment, which 
was to discover which of them was thought of, (although it was of 
precisely the same character as those in Which he had succeeded,) 
he failed. In the second, which was to discover the position 
of one of the same four characters on the blackboard, the subject 
meanwhile keeping his mind intently upon the form itself to the 
exclusion of its position, he also failed. The third test was as to 
whether, by holding the hand of a person who was thinking intently 
of a simple figure, he could draw that figure in chalk. This also 
failed. 

Next the attempt was made to get him to designate a simple tune 
from impressions received synchronously with the imaginary im- 
pressions of the rhythm. This also failed. It is due to Mr. Brown 
to state that these experiments were of a character such as he had 
never professed, but on the contrary doubted his ability to perform ; 
that they were new to him, and each tried but once. The above un- 
successful experiments suggested another in which he was more 
fortunate, viz : the designation of a particular organ of sensation. 
It was announced to him that the attention would be directed to 
a particular sensation. This he readily detected to be the sense of 
smell, by selecting the nose. But it will be at once perceived that 
by the conditions of this experiment the same possible source of 
error was introduced, as in the simple experiment of locating a pain, 
or an "imaginary pain" (as if there could be such a thing). In 
fact, the moment the particular sense was selected, the organ minis- 
tering to it at once became the true point thought of, and the ele- 



22 Mind Reading. 



£> 



merit of possible unconscious indication was introduced. Added to 
this, in the particular case selected, it must be confessed that the 
natural desire to consummate a termination to the inevitable rubbing 
of the subject's nose, as his hand was passed in succession over the 
organs located in the head and face, must have furnished an addi- 
tional stimulus to the tremors. 

The trial was then made to ascertain whether the instant of a 
slight muscular movement was ascertainable by an impression con- 
veyed to Mr. Brown, and the interpretation of the answer was 
that it was not ; but the moment the interrogation concerned 
\ht place where the motion was made, it was correctly stated to be 
the right knee-cap. Many other experiments of the same kind as 
those to which he is accustomed were successfully accomplished, 
but they would lend no additional value to this brief account, be- 
cause they are all open to the objection suggested. 

It is undoubtedly astonishing on the one hand that unconscious 
"ideomotor movements" should be so general a consequence of 
the attention to any indifferent idea, and on the other hand that 
they should be sufficient in amount to enable a sensitive and im- 
pressible person to detect and rightly interpret them. But it is 
possible. No experiment which Mr. Brown performs is removed 
from the suspicion of this agency, except that with the insulated 
wire ; and this, though unsuccessful here, deserves attention from 
its authenticated success elsewhere. 

In reference to these experiments with wires in this city, an in- 
stance occurring in my own observation and which has not appeared 
in print is worthy of reproduction. 

One or two persons had been invited by Mr. Pugh (Mr. Brown's 
manager) to meet the latter in the superintendent's room of the 
Western Union Telegraph Company's office here, in order to wit- 
ness an experiment which had long been suggested to Mr. Brown, 
but not yet attempted. 

Presuming on his power to interpret the thoughts of a person 
through two hundred feet of wire, it was proposed to ascertain if 
he could receive impressions through .greater distances, and thus 
justify the soubriquet applied to him of " the human telegraph." 

Two experienced operators were present, who, having cut ten 
slips of paper and numbered them from thirty to forty, requested 
the operator in New York to get ready to hold the wire, and at 



Mind Reading. 23 

the same moment to think intently of that one of the above num- 
bers which represented his age. It was a solemn and impressive 
moment. In the next few seconds it was to be determined whether 
that inscrutable ' force which had evolved the " Inferno" and 
" Hamlet," had really been speeding away unseen through space, 
from every one of countless millions of brains — now dancing in the 
sunlit space of our planetary system, now converted into heat and 
light or what not by impact with the matter of Alpha Cygni — 
perhaps adding its share to making up differences of the brilliancy 
of the earth as seen from remote regions of space. It was the 
critical moment in which an era might be born, and the hypothesis 
of the correlation of the mental and physical forces receive the cor- 
roboration of successful experiment. Every one in the room 
watched the movements of Mr. Brown in silence and with intense 
interest. 

The tap-tap of the instrument was the announcement we re- 
ceived that all was ready. Mr. Brown, blindfolded and holding 
the wire between his hands, his head bowed over the table whereon 
the numbers were laid, commenced moving slowly to and fro, his 
forehead occasionally descending to absolute contact with one or 
other of the papers. To one of these he returned several times, and 
finally picked it up with his hand, at the same time unfastening 
the bandage over his eyes, and handing it to the operator. It was 
the number 37. The silence of intense interest was only broken 
by the clicking of the electro-magnet responsive to the touch of 
one of the operators, who was announcing the result to the sub- 
ect in New York, and asking information in regard to it. 

Our impatience to get the answer made the monotonous ticking 
of the ' ' Sounder' ' in reply occupy apparently twice the usual time, 
but it came nevertheless quickly and substantially in these words : 
" Battery put on the wire by mistake." 

That battery could hardly have been so old. 

The three trials which followed this (between Philadelphia and 
Wilmington,) and of which alone I have any personal knowledge, 
were unsuccessful. 

But granting that this faculty stands future tests and can be re- 
lied upon, or that the molar vibrations transmitted to the operator's 
hand are not sufficient to account for the phenomena, what expla- 
nation can be offered of them ? 



24 Mind Reading. 

The following is taken from the circular entitled "Mental Tel- 
egraphy," which was circulated by the manager of Mr. Brown: 

THE SCIENCE OF IT. 

Dr. Cocker, Professor of Mental Science in the University of Michigan, in a 
scientific essay on Brown's performances, says : — 

tl As to the hypothesis : he is no imposition, as he is well known by several 
residents in the University, who were acquainted with him before any tour of 
exhibition was contemplated, and knew that he possessed natural peculiarities. 

" Only a hint can be given as to what is the true hypothesis. A few of the 
cases he gives are instances of imageal representation of concrete objects in 
space. In order to have a representation of this sort, the optic nerve and optic 
ganglia, or the molecules of the optic nerve and ganglia, must have the same 
chromatic vibrations as in the first act of perception. 13 

" The intensity must, of course, vary, because the image is not so vivid. Now 
if the hypothesis be true, that the nerve current is some mode of force correlated 
with electricity, then we can conceive how the same molecular vibrations in the 
brain of the co-operator may be tx-ansmitted to the brain of the operator, and a 
faint image of the same object produced, so that really Mr. Brown sees through 
the brain and eyes of another. 

" Furthermore, a long copper wire was attached to the wrist of the operator 
and to the hand of the co-operator, where there could be no tension and relaxa- 
tion, and Mr. Brown succeeded perfectly," 

If Mr. Brown has ever been capable of imageal representations 
of concrete objects in space, he has given in no instance specific 
proof of the possession of this power which can be found authen- 
ticated. But assuming that he had, it by no means follows that 
the optic nerve should have any vibrations at all. Maudsley says, 
in speaking of the Ideational Centre, "The reflex action of an 
ideational centre may operate downwards, not only upon the 
muscular system, but also downwards on the sensory ganglia." 
"As the idea is excited into activity by the impression on the 
senses, so it may in turn react downwards upon the sensory cen- 
tres, giving rise under certain circumstances to illusions and hallu- 
cinations." In this, as in all other cases when the idea is derived 
from a stimulus from without, that stimulus must first assume the 
character of a sensation; because, to quote his language, "the 
anatomists believe they have now demonstrated that the nerve 
fibres which ascend from the spinal cord through the medulla ob- 
longata do not pass directly to the surface of the hemispheres, but 
end in the ganglionic cells of the ' corpora striata' ; new fibres 



See note (a) at end of addendum. 



Mind Reading. . 25 

starting from these cells and radiating to the cortical cells, to es- 
tablish the communication between the primary and secondary 
nervous centres." 

Now assuming that the "nerve current is some mode of force 
correlated with electricity," the conclusion that "we can con- 
ceive how the same molecular vibrations in the brain of the co- 
operator may be transmitted to the brain of the operator," seems 
hardly justified. 

If we unite the wires leading from twenty-six electro magnets, 
each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet, with a single wire, 
and then attempt to affect only one of those magnets by sending 
a current through the main wire, we would be attempting a far 
simpler experiment than that spoken of here. The same current 
of electricity which will produce different degrees and kinds of 
involuntary and unconscious muscular action if applied to the dif- 
ferent motor ganglia, will produce the sensation of smell if applied 
to the olfactory, or sight if applied to the optic nerve, and most 
probably ideation of different kinds if applied to the various cells 
of the central hemispheres. We have then a stimulus from with- 
out acting directly on the sensory ganglia of the observer, and 
through them to the cerebral cells, expending its force, first, by 
transmission laterally as a train of thought among them ; second, 
by the storing up of residua as memory of the act; and third, by 
reflection downwards on thesensorium commune. Next this frag- 
ment of the original force is divided between, first, derivative 
sensation, and second, molecular motion propagated through the 
nerves of the body and finding outlet through those of the hand to 
the similar nerves in the hand of the operator. From this point 
it is conducted either to the motor or sensory centres, and in any 
case through the latter to the vast congeries of cortical cells of the 
hemispheres, when finally what remains of force must be supposed 
to exercise a selective discrimination on these innumerable cells 
sufficient to cause a "faint image of the same object, so that Mr. 
Brown really sees through the brain and eyes of another." 

If this be a fact, certainly its explanation on known physiologi- 
cal principles remains one of those problems with more unknown 
quantities than equations to solve them by. 14 

14 It matters little whether this current be electricity or magnetism, Od (as Reich - 
cnbach calls it), or nerve current. Our knowledge of the laws of force is suf- 



26 * Mind Reading. 

Since Mr. Brown's appearance in this city, the subject has 
excited a great degree of interest, and attention has been called to 
numerous cases where amateur experimenters and professional exhi- 
bitors have claimed various degrees of suceess. Hearing of one of 
the latter who was said to have given even more remarkable in- 
stances of this mysterious power than any accredited to Mr. 
Brown, it was determined to give this subject as thorough investi- 
gation as possible. 

An experiment having been made with the young man referred 
to (who always executed these marvels in the presence of his 
mother, and avowedly through the assistance of spirits), and a few 
witnesses having been provided and the same hall selected, a series 
of twenty-five experiments of the same general character as those 
referred to in connection with Mr. Brown, were tried — such as find- 
ing secreted objects, spelling out words by indicating the letters in 
succession on an alphabet, etc., etc. Out of these twenty-five 
experiments but two were successful, and both with the same lady. 
The results being considered so unsatisfactory by the performers, 
a new appointment was made for the next day, when some of the 
same and some additional witnesses were selected. Twenty-four 
experiments were undertaken, each of the seven persons present 
being made at least once the subject. But four of these experi- 
ments succeeded, three of them with the same person. So far as 
this person is concerned, therefore, nothing is added to our knowl- 
edge. It may be stated that there was not the least difficulty in 
leading this "mind reader" in any direction, by very clumsily- 
imitated unconscious movements of the hand, or indeed even by 
mere pressure. 

It would seem to be a fair conclusion from the facts thus far 



ficiently advanced to require no further confirmation of the doctrine that what- 
ever occurs — whether heat, motion, sound, or idea — costs energy, and that the re- 
sidual energy will be less in proportion as the effects produced by the stimulus 
have been greater, or as that original force has been more diverted into various 
manifestations. In all Reichenbach's extraordinary assertions (the " Researches 
on Magnetism," etc., translated by John Ashburne, M. D. Hyppolyte Bailliere, 
219 Regent street. London: 1851), there is nothing so extraordinary as this — 
that a residual current, acting through a complicated maze of centres, and con- 
nected as directly with one as with another, should result in an intelligible im- 
pression, however faint, by the excitation of those peculiar centres which alone 
could give it birth, to the exclusion of all the others. 



Addendum. 27 

known in connection with this new form of mind reading, that with 
the exception of the wire test (about which too little is yet known 
to warrant a decided opinion) there is nothing to justify the infer- 
ence that the results are obtained by the agency of any unknown 
or occult force. 



ADDENDUM. 



Since the presentation of this paper, a perfect confirmation of the theory of 
unconscious muscular movement was obtained through the kindness of my 
friends, the Messrs. A. A. and A. E. Outerbridge, of this city. These gentlemen 
have been amusing themselves for some time in practising " mind reading;" and 
each of them performs the ordinary feats of Mr. Brown, in a very satisfactory 
manner. During the course of an evening devoted to this kind of experimen- 
tation, the number of the unsuccessful attempts to find objects was exceedingly 
small. A gentleman having secreted an object during the absence from the 
room of Mr. A. E. Outerbridge, on giving the latter his hand was conducted 
directly to the spot where the object was hidden. The same gentleman having 
under the same conditions taken a circuitous route through the room, was con- 
ducted by Mr. Outerbridge over precisely the same route. 

Besides these ordinary tests, some were added of a very interesting character. 
Thus a person who had previously secreted an object while keeping his thoughts 
upon the locality where it was placed, held one end of a cane to his forehead, 
the other end being similarly held by Mr. Outerbridge. The object was found 
on two occasions with great rapidity. 

Another novelty was the discovery of a selected place by means of move- 
ments discernible in the hands of a person without any contact at all. 

The person who had selected the object held his right forefinger in front of 
him and kept his eyes steadily upon it, while his thoughts were firmly fixed 
upon the place. 

Mr. Outerbridge held his own finger at a short distance from that of the sub- 
ject, and kept his attention riveted upon it. After moving slowly over the floor 
for a few moments the place was discovered. In some remarks explanatory of 
these experiments, Mr. A. A. Outerbridge alluded to the fact that unconscious 
motion always follows in the direction of an object firmly fixed in the mind. 
This becomes perceptible in the motions of a subject's hand to an operator 
who has had a little preliminary practice, and especially so if the guiding 
impulses are screened from the notice of him who makes them by voluntary 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

021 065 862 2 



28 Addendum. 

motions of the hands made by the operator. The same is the case when any 
rigid object forms the connection between the operator and subject, as in the 
case of the passive subject, cane, etc. 

With regard to the last experiment, the unconscious guidance lies in the 
closing or non-closing of the interval between the two fingers. If the move- 
ment of the operator be in the right direction, the subject (if disposed to 
perform his part fairly) closes up the temporarily increased interval more rapidly 
than if the motion be in a wrong direction. 

The gentlemen to whose ingenuity we are indebted for this practical demon- 
stration of the theory heretofore noticed, are too well known to render any 
observations on this explanation necessary. 

As to the wire tests, various suppositions as to how they are attempted have 
been suggested to me, all of which are based upon the hypothesis that Mr. 
Brown is simply performing a trick, to which, on that account and for the rea- 
sons alluded to above, I must be excused for not referring. 

(a) Huxley says, in speaking of the hallucinations of a Mrs. A. * * *: " For 
there can be no doubt that exactly those parts of her retina which would have 
been affected by the image of a cat, and those parts of her auditory organ which 
would have been set vibrating by her husband's voice, or the portions of the sen- 
sorium with which these organs of sense are connected, were thrown into a cor- 
responding state of activity by some internal cause." {Elementary Lessons in 
Physiology, p. 273.) 

{b) The explanation that such selective action may take place by sympathetic 
vibration, as the vibrations of one tuning-fork are taken up by another in har- 
mony with it, is applicable only if we conceive the ganglionic cells of the cor- 
pora striata capable of any electrical tone, while each fibre to a cortical cell is 
capable of but a single one, and that the wave length of such tones is in some 
way altered by modifying the amount of the current, which latter must neverthe- 
less be supposed to pass from the ideational centres of one person to those of 
another, through all its transfers without change. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 065 862 2 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 065 862 2 



